Ruslan Romanov, Head of the Prosecutors’ Council of Ukraine, said there is a targeted information campaign and attempts at manipulation surrounding the formation of the конкурс commission for selecting the leadership of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP). According to him, criticism of the appointment of certain members of the commission, including attorney Oleksii Shevchuk, is subjective and ignores legislative requirements.
He said this in an interview with the Judicial and Legal Gazette.
Romanov emphasized that Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko acted strictly within the law, and that any demands to cancel the appointments without legal grounds constitute direct interference with his independence.
According to the head of the Council, the selection procedure was as public as possible; however, civic activists and lawyers showed insufficient interest in participating in the competition. Within the установлен term, only four candidates submitted documents, including Oleksii Shevchuk. Romanov suggested that the low activity of the civic sector may be linked to fear of the need to declare assets and to assume real responsibility. He stressed that the law does not provide a mechanism for recalling a commission member due to media backlash, but only on clearly defined grounds such as a personal statement or health condition.
The scandal erupted after a number of leading civil society organizations (CPC, “AutoMaidan,” “DEJURE”) and media outlets called on the Prosecutor General to replace Oleksii Shevchuk. The Prosecutors’ Council warned that any незакон personnel changes would lead to lawsuits and would block the work of the commission for an indefinite period.
In response to questions from the public and the media about the process of forming the конкурс commission that selects candidates for administrative posts in the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP), the Prosecutors’ Council of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General explained the sequence of events and the procedure for actions by prosecution bodies.
Spokesman for the National Association of Advocates of Ukraine Oleksii Shevchuk stated that he and his family had received direct threats to their life and health related to his appointment as a member of the commission for selecting prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP).
The wife of the patient who died after a Russian drone hit the building of the Medikom clinic (Kyiv), Natalia Smashna, will demand compensation from the clinic, accusing it of negligence that led to the death of her husband.
“My husband was at the Medikom clinic, where he was battling pneumonia. He entrusted his life to the doctors who were supposed to treat him. That night, the doctors should have at least woken my husband and offered to take him to the shelter, but they did not. They were negligent, and in a single moment, that negligence ended his life,” she said at a news conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
Smashna emphasized that clinic staff “should escort people to shelters.”
“You didn’t even give my husband a chance to survive. He didn’t even know there was danger. He just burned alive. My husband died, but it could have been avoided if he had been woken and taken to the shelter,” she said.
Meanwhile, Oleksiy Shevchuk, a partner at the Barristers law firm, said that Smashna had approached the clinic to request compensation for the costs related to her late husband’s burial.
“She is alone now; her husband is gone. She told the clinic: help cover the burial expenses so we could lay my husband to rest properly and honor him. She buried him herself. She asked for compensation, and they refused,” he said.
Shevchuk said, “If I were the clinic, knowing the tragedy this woman endured—and that it happened on the clinic’s premises—I would have personally found her and helped her get through the grief, rather than sitting abroad as one of the clinic’s owners.”
“We will find him. We will raise the question of why the owner of Medikom, who is abroad, is evading mobilization. We will find everyone involved in trampling on her dignity. She only asked for help with compensation so her child could at least attend kindergarten next year. She has no means to live right now,” he said.
Shevchuk added that the police in Kyiv’s Obolon district have not yet opened a case to investigate the clinic’s negligence following Smashna’s complaint.
Meanwhile, Barristers partner Yuriy Radzievsky said that “the staff at Medikom clinic apparently failed to fulfill their obligations to their patients.”
“We spoke with other patients who were in the Medikom clinic that night. No one woke them, no one warned them about the alarm, and no one escorted them to the shelter. The staff fled and abandoned their patients,” he said.
Radzievsky emphasized that if Medikom clinic “does not see any responsibility for what happened, we will prove it in court.”
“In court, we will present all the evidence, call witnesses who will testify that no one warned about the alarm, no one told patients to go to the shelter, and no one even showed where the shelter was located. We will prove that Medikom clinic must take responsibility and resolve all issues for the family of the person who died due to the clinic’s negligence,” he said.
“All documents and statements are already prepared and will be submitted to the competent authorities in the near future,” he said.
According to reports, on the night of January 5, the inpatient facility of Medikom clinic at 9 Obolonska Embankment suffered significant damage from a drone strike, killing a patient. The strike occurred at 2:40. At the time of the attack, 26 patients were in the facility. All the affected patients were evacuated to other medical centers.
SE Advisory Services, Schneider Electric’s global consulting practice, today announced the launch of Resource Advisor+, a next-generation intelligent energy and sustainability management platform.
The Resource Advisor+ platform and its suite of products are powered by AI-driven workflows and transform how organizations turn energy and sustainability data into practical action. A single platform and set of specialized products replace fragmented tools and disconnected data with a unified, multi-product experience in one intelligent ecosystem, enabling seamless product integration for emissions and energy management, sustainable supply chains, climate risk, and sustainability reporting. The Resource Advisor+ ecosystem serves as an intelligent command center that allows companies to unify data, accelerate decision-making, and rapidly deploy energy and sustainability initiatives across the business.
Sera: The Advantages of Resource Advisor+
Sera is the leading AI agent within Resource Advisor+, acting as a proactive digital partner that interprets user needs and coordinates a team of specialized agents operating in the background. This coordination sets Resource Advisor+ apart, as it leverages SE Advisory Intelligence—an proprietary knowledge layer that codifies two decades of Schneider Electric’s consulting experience into proven methods and real-world operational constraints. Sera and its team apply this embedded expertise to turn complex data into clear, actionable recommendations, enabling users to navigate energy and sustainability with unprecedented speed and confidence. Resource Advisor+ and Sera deliver three distinct advantages to companies:
“Today we mark an exciting milestone as we realize our vision for an AI-first strategy,” said Steve Wilhite, Executive Vice President of the global Energy & Sustainability practice at SE Advisory Services. “Resource Advisor+ offers companies an entirely new way to manage energy and sustainability, built on SE Advisory Intelligence and a network of agentic AI capabilities. By automating complexity and turning data into practical action, Resource Advisor+ enables users to accelerate both energy optimization and decarbonization, and reflects a fundamental shift in how we help clients achieve meaningful, enterprise-wide outcomes.”
The Resource Advisor+ ecosystem debuts with two new products—Carbon Performance and Supply Chain—and later this year will be expanded with two additional sustainability products: Climate Risk and Reporting and Compliance, as well as products for energy management and efficiency. The EcoStruxure™ Resource Advisor cloud platform, which helps businesses track and optimize energy and sustainability performance, remains available for customer use and purchase.
The new Carbon Performance product turns emissions tracking into actionable enterprise-wide decarbonization. It provides auditable calculations aligned with the GHG Protocol for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, enables companies to set targets, model emissions-reduction scenarios, and manage initiatives through Sera, which delivers decision-ready carbon analytics.
The Supply Chain product (formerly Zeigo Hub) helps reduce Scope 3 emissions in global supply chains while engaging suppliers in decarbonization at scale. The product offers flexible data collection, a personalized supplier experience, and structured recommendations that drive adoption and deliver measurable progress in emissions reduction for both corporate sponsors and suppliers.
“As organizations face increasing pressure to turn sustainability ambitions into measurable action, platforms that unify data, intelligence, and execution are becoming essential,” said Amy Cravens, Research Director for Sustainability and ESG Software at IDC. “Resource Advisor+ from Schneider Electric reflects a significant evolution in sustainability management, combining deep domain expertise with AI-driven workflows. With embedded advisory intelligence, Schneider Electric is helping enterprises move beyond reporting to faster, more confident decisions that connect energy, emissions, and supply-chain sustainability to real business outcomes.”
About SE Advisory Services
SE Advisory Services helps organizations turn ambitious sustainability, energy, and digitalization goals into measurable outcomes. Backed by Schneider Electric—one of the world’s most sustainable companies—the service combines deep expertise, global delivery, and AI-powered software to drive transformation across energy and risk management, decarbonization, nature-based solutions, operational efficiency, and digital transformation. Operating in more than 100 countries, SE Advisory Services turns complex challenges into competitive advantage for its clients.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric is a global leader in energy technologies that delivers efficiency and sustainability through electrification, automation, and digitalization of industry, businesses, and homes. Its technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and power grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, improving productivity, resilience, and environmental performance. The company’s portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-centric architectures, AI-based systems, digital services, and expert consulting. With 160,000 employees and 1 million partners in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric consistently ranks among the world’s most sustainable companies.
Most residents of Romania would support the unification of the country with the Republic of Moldova in the event of a referendum, according to the information and analytical center Experts Club, citing a nationwide January survey by the Romanian Center for Urban and Regional Sociology (CURS).
According to the study, in a hypothetical vote on the reunification of Moldova with Romania—publicly supported by Moldovan President Maia Sandu—56% of respondents said they would vote “in favor,” 37% “against,” and another 7% were undecided.
The survey was conducted from January 14 to 23, 2026, using the CATI method (telephone interviews) on a sample of 1,067 adult residents of Romania. The stated maximum margin of error is ±3% with a 95% confidence level.
In the event of a hypothetical unification of Romania and Moldova within Moldova’s internationally recognized borders (that is, including the territory of Transnistria), the united country would have:
a population of about 22 million people (18.91 million in Romania plus 3.0 million in Moldova, according to UN estimates),
an area of about 272.1 thousand square kilometers (238,298 sq. km + 33,847 sq. km),
a nominal GDP of about $423 billion, according to IMF estimates for 2025 (Romania $403.4 billion plus Moldova $19.5 billion).
In comparison with pan-European rankings, this would correspond to approximately 10th place in Europe by population (above Kazakhstan and below Poland), 11th place by area (between Italy and the United Kingdom), and around 15th place by nominal GDP (between Denmark and the Czech Republic).
Schneider Electric, a global leader in energy technologies, announces its participation in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The company delegation is led by CEO Olivier Blum, who will advocate for cross-industry cooperation to advance energy technologies.
“It is clear that we have entered a new era where artificial intelligence and energy are inseparable, and together they will transform every business,” said Olivier Blum, CEO of Schneider Electric. “AI requires computing power, and computing requires energy. That is why the world needs greater energy intelligence. Customers across all sectors face the same challenge—using energy efficiently. As your partner in energy technologies, we electrify, automate, and digitize every industry, business, and home, improving efficiency and sustainability for all. And we are not just connecting systems—we are creating ecosystems in which AI, data, and people work in harmony. Let’s use the opportunity in Davos to advance energy technologies together.”
During this year’s meeting, the company will make a number of important announcements, including those listed below. The full list of Schneider Electric delegates and the format of the company’s participation can be viewed at se.com.
AI applications delivering real results
Schneider Electric was recognized in the 1st and 2nd cohorts of the MINDS program (Meaningful, Intelligent, Novel, Deployable Solutions), the Forum’s global program highlighting high-impact real-world applications of artificial intelligence. CEO Olivier Blum will receive awards for EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor and Snaplogic Touchscreen Room Controller at the winners’ award ceremony during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum on January 20, 2026.
Ninth recognition of a Schneider Electric plant as a flagship smart factory
The Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network, which identifies and recognizes the most advanced manufacturing sites in the world, honored Schneider Electric’s plant in Wuhan. It became one of only three plants worldwide to receive recognition for work with talent—a new category introduced this year. This recognition became the ninth in Schneider Electric’s series of Lighthouse awards. The plant was recognized for implementing an innovative, people-centered workforce-of-the-future model that bridges the skills gap and sets a new standard for manufacturing resilience.
Gathering of C-level executives from different industries
Frederic Godemel, Executive Vice President for Energy Management at Schneider Electric, will convene a cross-industry group of global leaders and influencers on behalf of the Forum’s Bloomberg New Economy Energy Technology Coalition. This will be the Coalition’s first significant meeting, aimed at accelerating the adoption of technologies that make energy consumption more efficient, sustainable, and flexible amid growing global demand for electricity.
Driving change for underserved communities
Schneider Electric and EDP jointly launched the EDGE Transition program—a global accelerator that will support social entrepreneurs offering clean and affordable energy solutions and creating inclusive economic opportunities for underserved communities.
The program helps early-stage startups through mentorship, technical expertise, strategic partnerships, and access to long-term, high-risk-tolerant capital, inviting solutions that serve underserved communities and promote equitable access to energy. The initiative aims to accelerate the energy transition and drive global electrification for sustainable impact.
The organizations will announce their partnership in Davos on January 21.
More information about Schneider Electric’s participation in the Annual Meeting can be found at https://www.se.com/ww/en/about-us/events/davos/.
About Schneider Electric
Schneider Electric is a global leader in energy technologies that improves efficiency and sustainability by electrifying, automating, and digitizing industry, businesses, and households. The company’s technologies enable buildings, data centers, factories, infrastructure, and power grids to operate as open, interconnected ecosystems, increasing productivity, resilience, and environmental performance. Its portfolio includes intelligent devices, software-based architectures, AI-enabled systems, digital services, and expert consulting. The company has 160,000 employees and 1 million partners in more than 100 countries and consistently ranks among the world’s most sustainable companies.
www.se.com
Learn about the latest trends shaping sustainability, Electricity 4.0, and next-generation automation at Schneider Electric Insights.
The Moldovan government has extended temporary protection for displaced persons from Ukraine until March 1, 2027, with the country switching from automatic renewal to renewal upon application from 2026. Online applications must be submitted between February 1 and April 30, 2026, with a processing time of up to 90 days. The authorities also indicate that temporary protection may be revoked if the person is absent from Moldova for more than 45 days in total.
The Experts Club Information and Analytical Center also provides key terms for extension in other jurisdictions.
1) European Union. EU countries have agreed to extend the temporary protection mechanism for Ukrainians until March 4, 2027 (previously until March 4, 2026).
2) Switzerland. The Federal Council has extended the S protection status until at least March 4, 2027.
3) United Kingdom. The Ukraine Permission Extension (UPE) scheme is in effect, allowing individuals with valid Ukrainian migration status in the UK to apply for an additional 18 months of stay; the scheme is open from February 4, 2025.
4) United States. The US Department of Homeland Security has extended TPS status for Ukraine: the current extension period is valid until October 19, 2026 (an 18-month extension, counting from April 20, 2025).
5) Canada. For some Ukrainians and their family members who have applied for family reunification and are awaiting a decision on permanent status, measures have been introduced to support legal residence, including the possibility to apply for documents and permits from within Canada, with a deadline of March 31, 2027.
6) Norway. The authorities have decided to extend the collective protection scheme for another year; according to the UDI, the extension for most holders of such permits will take place automatically after the current term expires.
Experts Club notes that the differences between countries are most often related not to the principle of protection itself, but to administration: some countries apply automatic extension, while others apply extension upon application (as in Moldova from 2026), as well as requirements for actual presence and document renewal.
